Conference: Schools facing $1 billion-plus midyear cut

Dec. 8, 2008

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Kevin Gordon, president of the Sacramento-based School Innovations & Advocacy lobbying group, discusses how parents can help their schools through tough financial times during a keynote address Monday at the California Consortium of Education Foundations' annual conference in Orange. He predicted California schools will be forced to cut $1 billion to $1.5 billion midyear. SCOTT MARTINDALE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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About 100 school fundraising leaders and school district administrators gathered at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange for the California Consortium of Education Foundations' annual conference. The conference's title was "Weathering the Financial Storm: Tools for Local Education Foundations." SCOTT MARTINDALE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Kevin Gordon, president of the Sacramento-based School Innovations & Advocacy lobbying group, discusses how parents can help their schools through tough financial times during a keynote address Monday at the California Consortium of Education Foundations' annual conference in Orange. He predicted California schools will be forced to cut $1 billion to $1.5 billion midyear. SCOTT MARTINDALE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

ORANGE - Public schools in the state likely will be forced to trim their budgets by at least $1 billion in the middle of this school year, putting an extraordinary burden on parents to find ways to effectively bridge the financial gap in a matter of months, school fundraising experts said at a statewide conference Monday.

The state Legislature is expected to act as soon as mid-January on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed $2.5 billion midyear cut to K-12 public education, said education financing lobbyist Kevin Gordon, the keynote speaker at the California Consortium of Education Foundations' annual conference at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange.

"I'm fully expecting that where we end up is $1 billion to $1.5 billion in midyear cuts," Gordon, president of the Sacramento-based School Innovations & Advocacy lobbying group, told about 100 conference attendees. "… It will be another draconian budget that will send us into a tailspin."

Particularly challenging for parents and fundraising groups will be differentiating this year's dismal budget message from the "sky is falling" message that reverberated loudly in communities across California last spring, Gordon said.

In Orange County alone, more than 1,900 teachers faced termination last spring, but as the budget picture improved for education, the number plummeted to about 100 by September. Many of those who lost their jobs were temporary teachers working on one-year contracts.

"It's important to fight the fight and illustrate the cuts to our communities so they get it," Gordon said.

Midyear cuts would be different in that teachers cannot be laid off before the end of a school year. Hence, school districts would look to cut things like school supply budgets, music, arts and sports programs, as well as non-classroom employees who aren't under yearlong contracts.

With school districts increasingly relying on local community support to make up for the shortfalls, conference speakers emphasized that parent groups will need to carefully craft their fundraising strategies and marketing messages to effectively reach their target audience.

About 85 percent of the households in any given community do not have children in public schools, so the only ways to reach out to the community at large are through nonschool groups - service organizations, senior centers, chambers of commerce, community events and corporate sponsorships.

One key to tapping into the community's pocketbooks is to understand how people think and what will motivate them to help their schools, said Wayne Padover, associate professor of educational administration at National University in Los Angeles.

"It's hard for people to hear schools need money because more than half of the state budget is for education," Padover said. "But the reality is, are we willing to have a generation of students that won't be served while we're waiting on the Legislature?"

Tim Shaw, founder of the Irvine-based Empower/Excel consulting firm and a former president of the Irvine Public Schools Foundation, said the foundation was able to increase its direct-mail donations from about $25,000 per mailer to $1 million or more per mailer by hiring a marketing firm to understand how Irvine residents think. The marketing firm surveyed residents on why they moved to Irvine and how they got information on their schools, he said.

"It really wasn't that expensive," Shaw said. "We learned that people (in Irvine) wanted to have kids, and they saw the strength of the schools tied to property values. We crafted our marketing strategies based on that appeal."

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